Eating as I Go: Scenes from America and Abroad

In quiet tones, Friedensohn, a professor emerita of women's studies at New Jersey City University, describes meals eaten and friendships formed over the years, both in the United States and abroad. The more engaging chapters in this first-person narrative, ""Eat (Ethnic)! Eat (American)!"" and ""Kimchi Pride"" center, respectively, on places such as the Phil-Am, a Filipino store and cafeteria-style restaurant in Jersey City, and on Korean cooking in New Jersey, Vermont and Korea. Friedensohn notes her own eating habits, as well as others', clearly and sensuously: ""She points an arthritic forefinger first to pancit (Filipino noodles), then to a chocolately brown pork adobo (pork belly marinated in vinegar, garlic and soy sauce), then to a sculptural wedge of chicherones (pork cracklings)."" Especially rewarding is part four, ""Cooking for a Change,"" which recalls Friedensohn's experiences in the Food Service Training Academy, a free 14-week job-training program sponsored by the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which teaches ""life skills as well as knife skills."" Here, Friedensohn focuses on ""links (among) eating, poverty, and social policy,"" topics not generally addressed in food-centric memoirs. Dispatches from countries such as Senegal, Tunisia and Austria prove less intriguing, but are minor let-downs in this otherwise enjoyable volume. 25 photos.